How to fix Helldivers 2 'Failed to join' error
Along with how to fix the 'Quickplay' error.
The 'Failed to join' error in Helldivers 2 is currently causing problems for players who have been waiting nearly a decade for this sequel.
Don't panic though - Arrowhead, the developers of Helldivers 2, have confirmed that they're working on a solution for the 'Failed to join lobby' and 'Quickplay' errors.
If you're looking for a possible work-around though, we've explained how to fix the 'Failed to join' and 'Quickplay' errors in Helldivers 2 down below. Just keep in mind that there's a chance this solution might not work.
How to fix the 'Failed to join lobby' and 'Quickplay' errors in Helldivers 2
At the time of writing, there's no definitive fix for the 'Failed to join lobby' and 'Quickplay' errors occurring in Helldivers 2. (Though we do have some recommendations on how you might get around them after the statement below.)
The good news, however, is that the developers are working on a solution with the official Arrowhead Game Studios X (formally known as Twitter) account publishing this statement from Game Director Mikael Eriksson:
The above Tweet follows the below statement published on the official Helldivers 2 Discord on Thursday 8th February by Johan Pilestedt, the CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios:
'Hey everybody!
It's been a bit of crisis mode in the studio today therefore I have not been as active as I would have liked. We are seeing the matchmaking issues as well as some of the unfortunate stuck och login screen / crashes.
I just wanted to let you all know we're working as hard as we can on resolving these, the volume of players exposed some shenanigans in the system that went past many, many, many hours or testing.
We have tried resolving it on the backend only but it seems like we will have to patch the game to resolve the issue. Sorry for this and thank you for your patience.
For now I recommend to team up with people from the community as joining friends work fine.
I hope you are enjoying the experience once you get into the game.'
Since the 'Failed to join lobby' and 'Quickplay' errors are most likely being caused by overloaded servers, we do have to wait for Arrowhead to fix the problem at their end. Aside from following their suggestion of teaming up with friends or playing Helldivers 2 as a single player, there are two ways you might be able to work around this error.
The first is disabling Crossplay and the second is simply reloading the game. Disabling Crossplay may solve the 'Failed to join lobby' as it will help the servers filter the extra teammates you'll be looking for.
You can disable Crossplay in Helldivers 2 by:
- Enter the 'Options' tab of the 'Pause' menu
- Select the 'Gameplay' option
- Find the 'Crossplay' option
- Select 'Off'
- Ensure that the changed settings have been saved
Again - these are not definite solutions for either the 'Failed to join lobby' and 'Quickplay' errors, so please be prepared for the issues to continue. If this is the case for you, then we again recommend finding other players who are happy to play via the 'Friends' matchmaking option.
Hopefully Arrowhead will fix the problem soon and, if you'd like to keep up-to-date with their progress, we recommend joining the official Helldivers 2 Discord community.